"Yes, my son, my people! Apalano, and two or three others of whom you have heard me speak--all, alas, now dead! I was informed of your visit when I next came back to them, for a while, from my wanderings. I heard of it and what had happened; how Apalano's little child--his only one--had been killed by a venomous serpent." "The child of Apalano!" Leonard repeated in amaze. "The two children," Monella continued--"Mr. Elwood's child and Apalano's--were wonderfully alike, and your nurse, the Indian woman Carenna, was very fond of both, and was in the habit of taking them out together. She was out with them thus one day, and left them both sleeping in the shade of a clump of trees while she went a few yards away to gather some fruit. She returned (so she says) in a few minutes; then, thinking one of the children had a strange look she picked it up in alarm; at the same moment a serpent glided out from under its clothes and went away, hissing, into the wood. But the child was dead; and it was the child of the Englishman. Then Carenna, frantic with grief, and afraid to tell the truth to her master and mistress, exchanged the clothes and ornaments of the children. The trick succeeded; for the dead infant was swollen and discoloured; and Apalano mourned the death of his only child, when it went away, in reality, with the strangers and their Indian nurse." "Then," said Leonard excitedly, "I am----" "Ranelda, son of my well-beloved friend! Ah," said Monella, sadly, "it was a cruel thing to do. It preyed upon the mind of my friend, and, I truly believe, brought on the fatal sickness. But for that he might have lived, haply, to see at last the land of his fathers--might have been one of us here to-day." Leonard felt the tears come into his eyes at the picture called up by this suggestion; and he said in a low tone, "Alas! My poor father! It was cruel--very cruel!" "It seems so," Monella returned with a sigh. "But God so willed it. And He has also willed that you should be led back to your own nation--that, after many days, you should join with me in the work that I had set myself." "It's very wonderful. Yet it seems to me to explain those strange dreams and visions that were ever urging me on to attempt the exploration of the mysterious Roraima! I suppose, when Carenna found out who you were, she confessed?"